Code is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOCode is followed by commentary, and commentary by revision, and thus the task is never done.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThere is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe heroic hours of life do not announce their presence by drum and trumpet.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOIt is for ordinary minds, not for psychoanalysts, that our rules of evidence are framed. They have their source very often in considerations of administrative convenience, or practical expediency, and not in rules of logic.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOConsequences cannot alter statutes, but may help to fix their meaning.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOIn the end the great truth will have been learned that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer that the prize (or rather, that the effort is the prize), the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOProphecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOEvery human being of adult years and sound mind has a legal right to determine what shall be done with his own body.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOMembership in the bar is a privilege burdened with conditions.
BENJAMIN CARDOZONo judicial system could do society’s work if each issue had to be decided afresh in every case which raised it.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOWith traps and obstacles and hazards confronting us on every hand, only blindness or indifference will fail to turn in all humility, for guidance or for warning, to the study of examples.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe prophet and the martyr do not see the hooting throng. Their eyes are fixed on the eternities.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOFreedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOJustice, though due to the accused, is due the accuser also. The concept of fairness cannot be strained till it is narrowed to a filament. We are to keep our balance true.
BENJAMIN CARDOZOThe great tides and currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by.
BENJAMIN CARDOZO